Cost Subtraction March 29, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, strategy.Tags: customer focus, strategy
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The Old Lean Dude (aka Bruce Hamilton) recounts that prior to the 1980s, nobody questioned price increases, but that when the 1980s rolled around, people began requesting price decreases. That meant a new way of pricing products, with the formula: Profit = Price – Cost. While many companies handle this through outsourcing and leveraging suppliers, other companies focused on small scale changes to handle price decreases.
For more from Bruce’s insightful article, please head on over to his blog.
Why Profit Centers Work Better On Paper Than In Reality March 29, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus.Tags: customer focus
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Bill Waddell over at Evolving Excellence relates a story where he attempted to purchase a barbeque grill at WalMart online to pick up at a store, only to discover that the purchase was cancelled because WalMart Online said the store didn’t have the grill in stock. Yet when Bill called the WalMart, he discovered four of the grills were in stock. He then spent some time on the phone with customer service, and customer service was unable to adequately address the issue of purchasing the grill. This comedy of errors is a product of poor process design, and we have all been victim to something like this in the past. Bill takes unusual joy in engaging employees in laying the process faults bare.
See the rest of Bill’s story with WalMart here.
Top 10 Survival Tips for Manufacturers January 30, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, manufacturing.Tags: customer focus, manufacturing
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Difficult economic times, rising costs, and global competition make staying ahead of the pack a tricky challenge for manufacturers. Guy Morgan, managing director of BBK Southfield, has some excellent advice. It includes differentiating your products (many companies only offer more of the same), maintaining quality (companies deliver far too many defective products), and diversifying consumer bases.
Head on over to read Mr. Morgan’s insightful tips here.
Automakers Leading the Shift to a ‘Demand-Based Economy’ November 17, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in automotive, customer focus.Tags: automotive, customer focus
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Josh Cable, writing at IndustryWeek, describes how the automotive industry is switching from push to a pull model of production. Rather than mass-producing cars, consumer demands will begin to drive demand-based production. Instead of creating a set supply of cars, auto manufacturers are studying trends and demand through social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, and how receptive people are to ad campaigns. This has allowed them to add “precision” to their method of product, price, place, and promotion.
Check out the IndustryWeek article here.
How to Reverse-Engineer Criticism November 17, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, strategy.Tags: customer focus, strategy
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Maurice Ewing, writing for Harvard Business Review at Bloomberg Businessweek, has noted that instead of fighting criticism and becoming overly-defensive, companies should use criticism to their advantage. Ewing cites Wal-Mart as an example. Rather than handle issues or criticisms in a reactionary fashion, Wal-Mart should preempt criticisms or create plans to handle those criticisms, such as finding ways to keep prices low without having to cut already-low employee pay.
Check out the analysis article here.
Hassle Maps: The Genesis of Demand November 17, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus.Tags: customer focus
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Adrian Slywotzky, blogging forFast Company, talks about the use and effectiveness of “hassle maps.” It begins with realizing that there is no average customer, and encourages businesses to concentrate on the things customers dislike or even hate. Then the business must focus on ways to eliminate those hassles – thereby making a product that customers love and others cannot copy.
More details at the Fast Company blog post here.
That’s the Way We (Used to) Do Things Around Here April 20, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in culture, customer focus.Tags: culture, customer focus
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With a desired endpoint in mind, leaders must transform their company to meet that goal. To do this, people working at the company must change their behavior and their practices. To change culture, ingrained practices of how things were once done must be set aside. But how? A number of case studies are presented in this article. The agriculture company Cargill, for example, sent representatives to its customer industries. One of those companies, a packaged-foods manufacturer, said that Cargill continually sent people out to them who never sought to understand how they used Cargill’s ingredients. By bringing those people together, much more could be offered. Cargill did just that, by having its employees collaborate.
Read more in the Strategy+Business article here.
Lean Mindsets for Healthcare April 20, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, healthcare, lean.Tags: customer focus, healthcare, lean
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In a wide-ranging blog post, Mark Graban, on his Lean Blog, talks about speaking at the Lean Healthcare workshop put on by TechSolve, a non-profit consultancy that teaches process improvement methodologies. In his post, Mark recaps the topics he covered. Among them, lean is profoundly customer (patient) focused. As such, wait times in lobbies should be addressed. Mr. Graban also explained that problems are actually treasure, because they show where improvements can be made.
Check out Mr. Graban’s excellent post here.
The Company as Community: Threadless Puts Everyone in Charge February 4, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Creativity & Innovation, customer focus, new products and technologies.Tags: Creativity & Innovation, customer focus, new products and technologies
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William C. Taylor at Fast Company seeks to know how a clothing company that puts the customer in charge can succeed. Fans of products are often full of suggestions and ideas, and the clothing company Threadless decided to let them in on the business process. Customers submit t-shirt designs, which are then voted on, and the most successful are judged by the company based on commercial criteria, and winners receive cash, credit, and compensation if their designs are reused later on.
Check out the Fast Company article here.
Be Careful What You Wish For January 22, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, Lean Thinking.Tags: customer focus, Lean Thinking
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The Old Lean Dude blog has related a story about a customer and a grocery store checkout line. The customer was delayed while the cashier rearranged the products with all the barcodes facing up, so that they could be scanned quite quickly. The cashier explained that his productivity was measured by the time between the first and last items scanned. An unintended consequence brought about by management, the customer was forced to wait while the cashier rearranged items in order to scan them quickly.
Check out The Old Lean Dude post here.
Costco vs. the Just-in-Time Consumer January 10, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, economy.Tags: customer focus, economy
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Kevin Meyer over at Evolving Excellent heralds the return of the “just-in-time” consumer –the shopper who buys things as they are needed. In his analysis of a Wall Street Journal article, Mr. Meyer highlights how fewer people are buying in bulk and resorting to buying necessary quantities of few products. He notes how the number of items in an average medicine cabinet, pantry, and cosmetics bag for example, has fallen from 404 in 2006 to 369 today. Corporations and companies are also beginning to meet the trend by offering smaller-portioned size products.
Check out Mr. Meyer’s blog post here.
A Smarter First-Aid Kit August 12, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, new products and technologies.Tags: customer focus, new products and technologies
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The First-Aid Support Kit, designed by Kristine Erdman, seeks to assist those with no medical experience and in need of first-aid. The kit, divided into compartments based on the kind of injury, contains the kinds of medical supplies needed for those specific kinds of injuries. Graphics on the lids of the compartments demonstrate how to handle injuries.
For those of us who marvel at the lack of user-friendly visual controls and text-rich “users” manuals that actually get in the way of using a product, let this serve as inspiration.
Check out more photographs and find more information here.
How to Design Poor Service August 12, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, Lean Thinking.Tags: customer focus, Lean Thinking
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100% utilization of people or equipment never works. It leads to long waiting lines, hold time, and inventory. Mark Graban over at Lean Blog recounts his June vacation where American Airlines lost his, and his wife’s luggage for four days. He wrote a letter to American Airlines, and received a call and voicemail from someone in their executive offices. Attempting to return the call several times, Mr. Graban could never get through. He muses that rather than mass e-mails offering apologies, American Airlines should focus on eliminating the need for mass apology e-mails.
Check out Mr. Graban’s post –and his bad experiences with Verizon FIOS – here.
Burgerville Offers Personalized Calorie Counts on Receipts July 16, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus.Tags: customer focus
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Burgerville, a fast-food chain in the Pacific Northwest, has always focused on seasonal foods and responded to customers wishing to customize their orders. Now Burgerville, in incredibly creative fashion, is printing up personalized calorie counts on receipts –to make the customer aware of what he or she is consuming. Taken one step further, Burgerville offers tips on changing up meals. For example, a salad with Lite Ranch dressing rather than regular fries saves a customer 250 calories from the meal.
Check out the Burgerville article at FastCompany here.
Change of Culture is Needed in Hospitals July 16, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, healthcare.Tags: customer focus, healthcare
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After a spate of miscarriage misdiagnoses beginning at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Ireland, calls mounted for an independent inquiry into the matter. The Irish Commission of Patient Safety recently found that existing regulations were not sufficient enough to ensure the highest level of care, or that the framework to thoroughly correct mistakes did not exist. Snap diagnoses, coupled with doctors not taking time to engage with their patients, have helped cause problems. A new culture – one that minimizes errors and catches mistakes – was needed.
Check out the Sunday Business Post article here.
Leading Lean: Bring Lean to Your Sales Team July 16, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, leadership, Lean Thinking.Tags: customer focus, leadership, Lean Thinking
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Jamie Flinchbaugh, writing for Assembly Magazine, notes that lean applies to every single function of a business, including sales. He lays out a few quick steps to sell lean to a sales team. It must be demonstrated to the sales team that lean is worth the effort it takes to implement. Among other tips, the sales team should be observed in their process and how they work with customers. To help a customer, a sales team member should, for example, know their customer’s problems better than the customers themselves. That would involve understanding the customer’s processes and environment.
Check out Mr. Flinchbaugh’s article here.
The Importance of Frugal Engineering June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, manufacturing.Tags: customer focus, manufacturing
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Frugal engineering is not low-cost engineering, says Vikas Sehgal over at Strategy+Business. It isn’t meant to avoid cutting costs, but avoid unnecessary costs in the first place. Customers who can afford more are looking for more. But for emerging markets –the people moving out of poverty in China, for example –are looking for basic modern technology. The ultimate goal of frugal engineering is thus is to provide the essential functions people need.
Check out Mr. Sehgal’s excellent, in-depth article at Business+Week here.
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How to Design Like You Give a Damn in 5 Easy Steps June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Creativity & Innovation, customer focus.Tags: Creativity & Innovation, customer focus
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Joe Duffy, writing over at FastCompany, provides five easy steps –and a multitude of inspirational and visually-stimulating images –to design like you do indeed give a d—. For example, give a d— about people and the collective creative process. And give a darn about what is being designed –it doesn’t have to be sexy, just creative.
Check out the article here.
Design: A Key Differentiating Factor for Innovative Products and Services February 17, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Creativity & Innovation, customer focus.Tags: Creativity & Innovation, customer focus
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How do you give meaning to things? Paul Hobcraft at Innovation Weblog believes that design is really the only way to give meaning to something –to elicit an emotional reaction, an emotional attachment, etc. Appealing to the hearts and minds of customers is important. Research shows that design-driven companies are far more innovative as well.
Check out Mr. Hobcraft’s post here.
New Infographic Shows Impotence of U.S. Healthcare System February 17, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, healthcare.Tags: customer focus, healthcare
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According to an infograph put together by National Geographic, Canada invests less than half as much as the United States in healthcare, and according to National Geographic, gets longer life expectancies from it. Interestingly enough as well, the thickness of the lines on the graph denote how much a person visits the doctor. The United States’ line is relatively thin, while the Japanese line is thicker –leading to the thought that monitoring and preventative medicine might be the best course of action.
Check out the analysis here.
The World’s First Lean Dentist December 1, 2009
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Creativity & Innovation, customer focus, Lean Thinking.Tags: customer focus, lean, Lean Thinking
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Inspired by Henry Ford and lean methods, Dr. Sami Bahri of Jacksonville, Florida, set out to reform his dental practice, looking to overcome things like long waiting room wait times, chair wait times, and diagnoses. By 2005, Dr. Bahri had made serious breakthroughs. When patients are told they have appointments at set times, lasting for set durations, Dr. Bahri really means it. The benefits for the business are telling as well. Prior to 2005, it had taken Dr. Bahri seven years to pay off half the loan on his business; in 2005 alone, they paid off the second half.
I recently heard Dr. Bahri’s story at the Association for Manufacturing Excellence conference, and it is quite amazing.
For the Lean Blog post and a video interview with Dr. Bahri, go here.
Blockbuster to Put Movies on SD Cards December 1, 2009
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Creativity & Innovation, customer focus, new products and technologies.Tags: Creativity & Innovation, customer focus, new products and technologies
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Netflix revolutionized the movie rental field, and Blockbuster was a little slow to catch on. But Blockbuster may very well make a comeback of blockbusting proportions. Creating small kiosks, the plan is for you to bring your own SD card to a store, slip into the machine, and load up a movie. From there, you can watch it however you want until the time expires and the movie no longer plays. Coolest-Gadgets.com believes this is the future of movie rentals, but wonders why Blockbuster chose to use SD Cards rather than USB Flash Drives.
Check out the article here.
Customer Service Tops Reasons for Customer Churn November 30, 2008
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus.Tags: customer focus, customer service
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In a recent email blast, Jill Jusko of IndustryWeek magazine describes the results of a recent Accenture global survey of customer satisfaction. The article is not on the web, as far as I know. The email is presented unedited below.
“The priority in receiving benefits from automobile sales should be in the order of the customer, then the car dealer, and, lastly, the maker.”
This quote is attributed to Shotaro Kamiya, first president of Toyota Motor Sales Co. Ltd., on Toyota’s Web site, but its meaning is frequently cited by many businesses: The customer comes first. That said, recent research suggests that many businesses are failing to model their behavior after this ideal.
Instead, Accenture survey results show that for the fourth consecutive year, the number of consumers who took their business elsewhere due to a poor customer experience was significantly higher than those who left because they found a lower price elsewhere. Among U.S. respondents, 73% said they left a business due to a poor customer experience, compared with 47% who switched because of lower prices. Across the entire respondent base (which included consumers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the UK and the United States), 68% said poor service contributed to their departing a business, compared with 53% who cited lower prices.
“Doing the hard work to deliver the right customer experience — including service that meets rising customer expectations — can set a company apart and help it hold on to customers,” says Woody Driggs, managing director of Accenture’s Customer Relationship Management practice.
Customers also are becoming less forgiving of companies that fail to meet their needs. Fully one in five (20%) survey respondents said they would immediately leave a company as a result of a poor experience. That’s up from 13% in the previous year’s survey.
Other survey results show four key aspects of customer service that are most likely to make customers switch companies. Those are:
Whether the service representatives were polite and friendly
Whether their issues were resolved in a timely fashion
Whether service representatives took ownership for resolving a customer’s issues
Whether customer service was available at convenient times.
Additionally, customer service expectations are met least often in emerging markets, according to the survey data. In China, just 32% of respondents reported that their expectations were met frequently or often, down from 70% in the previous year. Consumers in emerging markets also were most likely to say that technology had improved customer service. For example, 87% of emerging markets respondents said technology helped compared with 44% of respondents in mature markets.Accenture fielded a Web-based survey of 4,189 consumers to compile its study of customer service satisfaction, “High Performance in the Age of Customer Centricity.”
